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Comment by nostoc | Hacker News Reader

Anticompetitive? Is parler competing with amazon in any ways, shape or form?

The claim is that AWS and Twitter are strategic partners, and Twitter is a direct competitor of Parler -

> 4. AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter. 5. Thus, AWS is violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in combination with Defendant Twitter

> 15. Less than a month ago, AWS announced with a press release a new multi-year deal with Twitter. AWS will “provide global cloud infrastructure to deliver Twitter timelines.” Twitter Selects AWS as Strategic Provider to Serve Timelines, Press Center, Amazon, (Dec. 15, 2020), https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-det....

Antitrust laws are broader than that. A company can be guilty of anti-competitive behavior even if that company is not a direct competitor of the parties affected.

I don't think so. Maybe if competitors use AWS? Tough to imagine this won't get thrown out though.

It may be a small point, but both Parler and Amazon make some income from advertising, so at least in this sense, they are competing.

A court can definitely rule on the clauses of a contract, about time someone made some case law here on modern software agreements

The whole claim by Parlor (read the linked complaint) is that AWS is doing this in coordination with Twitter to stop the flood of conservative people (including Trump himself, allegedly) moving from Twitter to Parlor after Twitter banned Trump (this is substantiated with links from media claiming that could happen and by the fact Parlor had become the most downloaded app on the AppStore after Twitter announced the Trump ban)... they claim AWS and Twitter are basically trying to kill Twitter's competition.

Why AWS would help Twitter is unclear to me, though.

Parl-fucking-LER!

At least take the time to note the name of the company, before weighing in with your opinions.

[None of this confusion would arise, if you Yanks spelled 'Parlour' properly]

Not a Yankee. And sorry for misspelling and hurting your feelings.

You didn't hurt my feelings. It just surprises me that someone thinks "Wow! I have a strongly held opinion about X which I really must share with the world!" but then doesn't even bother to take the minuscule amount of care required to note how X is spelled.

It just suggests the poster's examination of the subject in question has been pretty perfunctory and their opinion slightly less than well thought out.

[But congratulations on not being a Yank. That's something, at least]

> https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-...

I imagine the legal argument will be based on AWS providing the services & hosting for Twitter. Which would be a clear and fair argument.

You didn’t read before posting did you?

They make the case that Amazon is because they provide hosting for Parlers larger competitors.

That is not the only thing "AntiCompetitve" means, Favoring One customer over all other customers can also be Anti-Competitive under US Law, Parler does not have to compete with Amazon for them to be acting in an Anti-Competitive manner

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